Thursday, April 26, 2012

BLOG 8. The Bear Truth, by Cliff Jacobson

Readers who are familiar with my books know that I don’t
recommend hanging food packs in trees to keep the food away from bears. Over the years, I’ve come under
considerable criticism for this approach but I refuse to comply with what
appears to be conventional wisdom. Click up my book, “Boundary Waters Canoe
Camping, 2nd Edition” on Amazon.com and you’ll find this “one star”
rating and quote:

1.0 out of
5 stars This guy and his book are a joke
Typical of his book is his suggestion of hiding your food in the woods and not
to hang a bear bag, since bears would not think to look in the woods for your
food. The book was good for many laughs between me and my friends, if you are
interested in that, then buy the book.

Published
on July 12, 1999

Fact is, bears DO climb trees, and they climb very
well. Indeed, black bears who live
in the Smoky Mountains National Park nest in trees during the winter. The cartoon below, which I took directly
from the Smoky Mountains National Park brochure explains why. The legend is
small and hard to read so I’ve enlarged it below for your convenience:

LEGEND
BELOW ABOVE CARTOON READS:

These
above ground dens offer some advantages to ground dens. For one, being high above the ground in
a tree is a good defense against any potential predators. For another, the tree dens offer some
added insulation not present in alternate sites such as under rock overhangs or
the exposed rootballs of toppled trees

Black bears are great climbers. Indeed, when danger threatens, the first thing momma bear
does is to send the youngsters up a tree!

This bear in the photo below is checking out an eagle’s
nest, probably hoping for some tasty eagle eggs or eaglets. This is an adult
bear and getting up there was probably quite a climb!

This bear (photo below) has learned that by biting through a
rope a tasty treat will fall from the sky. In the Adirondacks, bears biting
through ropes have become so common that some campers are rigging two lines—a
white one that goes nowhere to fool the bear and a black one that holds the
food pack. Really now, how long do
you think it will take an intelligent bear to figure this out?

Talk about smart, get this: in the high peaks area of the
Adirondacks a relatively tiny, extremely shy middle-aged black bear named
“Yellow Yellow” has been able to figure out how to break into the popular
“BearVault 500”. It took her only
a few weeks. Once she learned the procedure (similar to opening a medicine
bottle with a tab) “Yellow Yellow” told all her friends. Soon, dozens of bears became educated
and the container became useless.
By contrast, some humans had to resort to the directions to figure out
how to open it! Stupid
animals? Hardly! These Adirondack bears have
learned that when they see a bag hanging in the air there is a rope attached.
They locate the rope, chew through it, and have lunch. I might add that Yellow
Yellow never attacked anyone. It was
just the food she was after!

This cartoon is from my long out-of-print book, “Basic
Essentials: Camping” It reads:
“Bears are very adept at getting food packs out of trees.”

Given the bear facts, why is it that people are so emphatic
about treeing their food when bears are around?

It’s simple, really. Federal authorities are responsible for
providing a safe camping experience for all. And to do this effectively they must have rules everyone
will follow. For example, in the
BWCA, it is recommended that campers hoist their food into a tree that is at
least ten feet off the ground and hang it on a limb at least six feet out.
There are not a lot of trees in the Boundary Waters with limbs strong enough to
support a heavy food pack hung that far from the tree. No matter that these elusive bear trees
barely exist, the rule separates food from campers and that’s enough.

The disconnect in thinking is simple. Federal authorities
don’t care if a bear gets your food, but they do care if a bear gets you! That’s
the reason for the “hanging rule”. Simply put: “people here, food THERE”. The feds figure that as long as the two
are separated, people won’t get hurt.

In frequented areas, I just take my food out of camp and
hide it in the woods.* The
rationale is that if a bear can’t smell your food or see your food, he won’t
get your food. It works! Today’s freeze-dried foods have near
zero moisture content (you add the water) and are sealed in odor-proof Mylar
foil which is as moisture-proof as a tin can. It’s doubtful a bear can smell through the foil, but he
certainly can smell you—and your hands where you handled the package. If you keep a scrupulously clean camp
and trip with modern dried foods, you should never have a bear problem. However, Mylar-packed packed foods
won’t necessarily keep a curious bear from checking out your camp. Why? Because a bear can probably smell you a quarter mile away!
Bears have learned that where there are people, there’s food. It’s the smell of humans that bring
them in, not the nearly odorless freeze-dried food.

If a bear can’t see
your food it won’t get your food!
Contrary to popular belief, bears see rather well. If in the past the bruin has learned
that food comes in packs, he may bite into any pack he sees. Ditto if he was
“conditioned” on tin cans or boxes.
Once a bear has had a positive experience with a container—be it box,
can, pack or ice chest—he will bite into every similar object he sees, and
he’ll continue that behavior until rewards stop coming and his earlier operant
conditioning behavior has been forgotten.

Some years ago, I was began a seminar on bears by telling
the audience that bears were as smart as a very smart dog. My friend, Dick Person—who spent 17
years living in a tipi in the Yukon and who had forgotten more about bears than
I’ll ever know—raised his hand and politely interjected that he’d never seen
any dog that was as smart as a bear!

In November, 1987, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printed an
article by Suzanne Charles, entitled “Cars not safe from bears at Yosemite”.
The article appeared earlier in the New York Times. Steve Thompson, Yosemite park’s wildlife biologist was
quoted as follows:

“Bears
have elaborate schemes for getting food.
One time-honored precaution, hanging bags of food from a rope high in a
tree is now seen as useless. Local
residents call the food bags ‘bear piñatas’.

The
bears chew off the rope that has been attached elsewhere, or chew off the
branch that is supporting the bag.
If the limbs are small, they’ll send the cubs out. If that doesn’t work, they’ll just
climb up above the bags, launch themselves out of the tree and grab the bags on
the way down.”

With this I rest my case and leave you with the bear
truth. You’ll find a treatise on
bears and bear-proofing your camp in my books, “Expedition Canoeing,” “Canoeing
and Camping, Beyond the Basics,” “Camping’s Top Secrets” and the just-released
“Boundary Waters Canoe Camping, 3rd Edition”.

In closing, I should add that those who canoe the unforgiving
rivers of northern Canada and Alaska never tree their food. Why? Three reasons:
1) It’s a bad plan to put all your eggs in one basket. If you capsize or an
animal gets your food, you’re in big trouble! 2) A pack filled primarily with
food will be terribly heavy.
Experienced trippers equalize the loads. 3) The trees in northern Canada are too small to support a
pack. In the barrenlands there are no trees at all.

*Some people are dumber than bears. Once, while presenting a bear seminar,
a man raised his hand and asked: “Say Cliff, you say to take the food out of
camp. Where does camp end?”

2 comments:

Thanks for the interesting post Cliff. I can verify your information about Yosemite and Great Smoky Mountains. We stayed at Yosemite a few years back. They make the hotel guests bring everything into the hotel, including kid's car seats, because the bears will smash windows and even rip mini van doors off to get to foo they see in the car. If a ranger sees food in your car after dusk, it will be towed far away.

I think the greater danger to the bear bag is getting hit in the head when trying to hoist or lower the thing,

Interesting point of view Cliff and your facts are well detailed & re-inforced. But hiking & canoeing in central Ontario causes me to be more concerned about racoons than bears (but bears are not ruled out by any means!) What advice do you have for this?

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